Liveries, 2026 Predictions and Hot sauce challenge - Episode 2 - The Cooldown Lap
The Cooldown Lap Podcast
Liveries, 2026 Predictions and Hot sauce challenge - Episode 2 - The Cooldown Lap
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Concept
power unit
A power unit is the engine and all the parts that help it run in a race car, including any technology that helps it use energy more efficiently.
Company
Oracle
Oracle is a big tech company that makes software and tools that help businesses, including those in the car industry, use data better.
Concept
live launch
A live launch is when a new car is shown to everyone at the same time, usually through a live video or event, making it feel exciting and special.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Mustang is a popular sports car made by Ford. It's known for being fast and has a long history in American car culture.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower measures how powerful an engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and more powerful the car can be.
Concept
F1
F1 stands for Formula 1, which is a type of very fast car racing. It includes races held on special tracks and is known for its high-speed cars and skilled drivers.
Brand
Toyota
Toyota is a big car company from Japan that makes many different types of cars, including popular models like the Camry and Corolla.
Company
Gazoo Racing
Gazoo Racing is a part of Toyota that works on making their cars faster and better for racing. They also compete in different racing events.
Brand
Audi
Audi is a car company from Germany that makes high-end cars. They are known for their stylish designs and innovative technology.
Car
Audi R26
The Audi R26 is a sporty car made by Audi. It's designed for performance and has a sleek look that many car enthusiasts appreciate.
Brand
Lotus
Lotus is a car company from the UK that makes sports cars. They have had some money problems recently, which is why they are mentioned as being 'almost bankrupt.'
Term
race bonus
A race bonus is extra money given to drivers for winning a race. Here, it's mentioned that winning a race could earn a driver $750,000, which shows how competitive and valuable racing can be.
Brand
Honda
Honda is a car company from Japan that makes reliable and efficient vehicles, as well as motorcycles and other machinery.
Term
limited changes
Limited changes mean that teams can only change a few things on their engines to make them better. They have to follow strict rules about what they can and can't do.
Company
Aston Martin Racing
Aston Martin Racing is the part of Aston Martin that focuses on racing cars. They build and race high-performance cars in competitions.
Term
MGUH unit
The MGUH unit is a part of the hybrid system in F1 cars that helps turn heat from the engine into electricity. This electricity can be used to make the car go faster or to charge the battery.
Term
turbocharger
A turbocharger is a part that helps the engine get more air, which makes it more powerful. It uses the exhaust from the engine to work, so it helps the car go faster without using more fuel.
Term
boost
Boost is the extra air pressure that helps the engine get more power. When a car has a turbocharger, it pushes more air into the engine, which makes it stronger and faster.
Brand
Lance Stroll
Lance Stroll is a race car driver from Canada who competes in Formula 1. He drives for the Aston Martin team and is known for his skills on the track.
Term
P 16
'P 16' means that Lance Stroll is in 16th place in the race. In racing, drivers are ranked by their position, and 'P' stands for position.
Car
Plymouth P15
The Plymouth P15 is an old car from the 1950s that has a unique look and was popular during its time. People talk about it because it's a classic example of how cars used to be made and is loved by collectors.
Brand
Mercedes
Mercedes is a car brand that makes luxury cars and is known for being very high quality.
Brand
Ferrari
Ferrari is a famous car brand from Italy that makes fast sports cars and is known for racing.
Concept
shakedown
A shakedown is like a practice run for race cars before the actual races start. It's a chance for the teams to make sure everything is working properly.
Concept
Formula 1
Formula 1 is a type of car racing where specially designed cars compete in races called Grands Prix. It's famous for being very fast and using the latest technology.
LIVE
All right, everyone, welcome back to the cool-down lap podcast, episode two with your host, Jogpaul and...
Garrett Bramble, let's go.
What's up, people?
Yeah, it's been a long week.
A lot of things have been happening and I want to say thank you to everyone for supporting our Instagram page and our reels.
We've gotten quite a bit of exposure through that and things blew up a little bit.
So it's a great start.
Heck yeah, man.
We're learning with each week that we're putting out and it's exciting just to see the interaction and to get to learn, you know, with you guys in the community as the start of the season kicks off.
You know, it's a rumor mill and there's things that are changing by the hour, by the day.
And so, you know, we might get some stuff right, we might get some stuff wrong, but we'll learn and laugh with you guys as you go through the season and enjoy it as it goes.
Joggy, some big stuff happened since we chatted last.
There were a couple of car launches and we want to go through that today.
Check out some deliveries, chat a little bit from an umbrella view about some of the rumors around the power units and what the different teams are putting out and then make some woefully so far, uneducated predictions about how we think this season is going to go down
and wrap it up by explaining with what we're planning on doing as a wager to put each other's predictive skills under the gun this year.
Yeah, I mean, what fun is it bet without a good wager to, you know, go with it?
So I'm excited.
We're excited.
Oh, we're not so excited to tell you.
We're excited to be the winner of the wager and watch the other person.
I feel so bad for you now, man.
It's going to suck, but I'm going to enjoy watching you.
Yeah, buddy.
Get the shit talking now.
Get the excuses in later and we'll watch you go through it.
We'll see how it goes.
But talking about the presentation of the car launches, I guess we'll kick it right off with Red Bull and VCar bent.
Since you're wearing the hat, let's see what you have to say about that.
So, you know, as anyone who watched probably saw Red Bull kicked it off in very Red Bull fashion.
This time bringing it back to Detroit, though, with their new title sponsor Ford.
They really wanted to bring it back to the roots and explain the passion behind what was driving this project and it was pretty captivating and they really stepped into it with a hell of a lot of confidence, which was nice to see from a team when we're, you know, unsure of how the
regulations are going to go.
But they walked through, you know, a super cool presentation that even involved the Oracle glasses to, you know, walk us through what their power unit was going to do this year, walk us through the, you know, virtual nuts and bolts of it all.
I'll be a little bit of a weird format. It was pretty entertaining to watch them go through that and explain it all.
They kicked it off with a pretty unique but incredibly Red Bull way of unveiling the car. I don't know if you saw that you're watching, right?
Yeah, I was watching that unveil for sure.
Yeah, they took a plane, flew it down a runway and used the plane to rip a tarp off the car to show everybody what was up. It doesn't get much more Red Bull than that.
No, it was very Red Bull, but you know, I was actually hearing from a lot of people that were watching around the world.
They made it seem to be a live show, a live launch, but it was actually pre-recorded. Did you know that?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was a lot of images that had leaked about what the livery was going to look like before that even aired. And I think that was true for a couple of the car launches.
Yeah, so make sure it goes off flawlessly and that Max doesn't make too many jokes about people checking out his ass while he's on stage.
That was good fun. I saw that, and it's been going around Instagram and everywhere for sure.
But yeah, I just found that interesting that even when I was tuning into it, I'm like, oh, this is live. It's going to happen right now.
But I guess you can't keep a secret like that, especially when you have a crowd of people in there with their phones and everything.
It's going to leak, right?
100%.
It was cool, though, man. The livery has really brought it back to a very cool part of the Red Bull history.
I think Red Bull has caught a whole heck of a lot of flack over the last many years for their incredibly unique presentation every year.
You know, their Control-C, Control-V methodology behind creating liveries.
And this is a nice throwback. They threw it back to the Sebastian Vettel area.
They really pulled back a deeper blue. They brought some really cool detail in the paintwork and I think really put up a unique livery,
which will be cool to see on track.
Yeah.
They really didn't show us anything other than the show car.
So what they're going to bring to the track could look completely different.
But to try to be as cool as the young kids out there, those guys cooked, man.
They brought a damn cool livery to the stages here.
Somebody called us out on Instagram and I thought it was so funny.
They were like, is this you trying to be Gen Z?
And I'm like, oh my God, they're on to us.
They're on your body.
But yes, they definitely did cook.
This is, I mean, this is beautiful.
Like the blues, even the contrasting yellows, the original like, you know, just the bowl, the logo, it just flows so well.
And I just love that they brought that like, I guess this is like a gloss metallic finish rather than the matte that they usually go for.
What would you say this is?
Well, I'm not a painter, but I'd say it probably pretty right.
That looks pretty glossy to me.
I think, you know, what, what this was, was a statement.
We just don't know what kind of statement it was yet.
You know, I see a lot of talk online that says it was probably means one of two things.
Either they made a really fast car and they're not worried about how much paints on it or the car is going to be incredibly slow.
But they want to get the most out of their sponsorship money as possible.
So, you know, I'm excited to see it.
It's damn pretty.
I just hope it's damn fast as well.
Well, I mean, if we know one thing about racing, I mean, this used to be a racing joke back when I used to work on my Mustang and whatnot.
The more stickers you have on the more horsepower you get.
So hopefully all these stickers translate.
Yeah, 100%.
I mean, you usually does more stickers, more sponsorship means more money.
Right.
So that means your car goes faster.
100%.
And there was, I mean, that picture there shows a three.
I know there were a bunch of rumors going around that they'd put a one on the car for launch day.
You know, at this point with AI and everything else is pretty hard to really understand what's true or not.
But it was pretty funny seeing some of those, some of those clips where they had a one on the car just started putting a statement from the other team.
That and you know, it seems like they made another statement towards Ferrari to it seems like they're making a lot of statements.
Do you, did you see that?
Yeah, man.
There's social media teams kick it off with Ferrari saying built in the dark driven in the light and then we'll kick it back with built in the light also driven in the light.
That's pretty funny.
Yeah.
Making a laugh and saying, Hey, that's probably why Ferrari is not that fast to build the damn thing in the dark.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You need some light to build a car.
I feel like it's probably more efficient.
100%.
I think it's damn fast.
I'm excited to see it on track.
It's going to look like a blue ball of fire going by this year, I hope.
Oh, for sure.
And I got to say, like the whole car, I think the statement of that kind of bright, catching blue, it just, it works with a Ford logo.
And it just like goes hand in hand with their branding.
And I think it's going to be an exciting, exciting partnership to see for sure.
100%.
Ford's a big dominant team in a lot of different parts of racing and it's cool to see them research back into F1.
Hopefully the statement in the first year is Max going to go 19 for 23.
I don't know.
But I'm excited to see if they can emulate 2022, 2023 at all.
Oh yeah.
And real quick, how do you feel about their new kit?
Dude, I was not a fan when I saw it at first.
Really?
You were a fan.
When I saw it, I was like, ah, they ruined that.
The old Red Bull kit was way better.
But you know, it might grow on me.
Yeah.
You know, somebody brought this up in F1 Troll page.
They're just like, they put the kit beside like, you know, those old bus seats.
Yeah.
It looks pretty identical.
Like this part portion right here to the bus seat.
I'm like, oh no, now I can't unsee it.
It just looks like a bus seat to me.
What do you think of the racing bulls when they dropped?
Let's take a look.
Racing bulls, my initial thought, Control C, Control V.
So it looked very similar initially.
But it kind of grew on me.
Like again, like with the logo, the contrast between like the carbon and the white,
like I personally have a bias.
I like the white cars.
And we're going to get to that a little bit.
But yeah, off the bat, it seemed very similar.
It seemed very familiar.
Whereas Red Bull, even though it's similar colors,
it seemed like they made it different enough to be eye catching and exciting.
I mean, this is eye catching and exciting.
But for me, it kind of looks like a Lego car.
Like it looks exactly like what you would buy off a store shelf.
Not something you'd see on the F1 track.
And it might just be the wheels.
If they have black wheels,
they could look a lot like what I expected.
Like the white wheels are catching me off guard a little bit.
That's true.
I saw people talking about the white wheels and now that I look at them,
like I can definitely see that, but they also do look cool.
Like the white car, the white wheels, I'm not going to lie.
It's not a bad look.
It's not a bad.
It does look toyish.
I see what you're trying to get at, but it definitely,
now that I noticed it, it looks not too bad.
It looks not too bad.
Hopefully it's fast.
So it is good at spinning out from what I heard.
Arvid Spinblad spun out the car,
but it was also a very poor weather conditioned day.
And other than that, yeah,
I don't have much more to say about the V-Car,
but it looks good.
It looks good.
Again, did they have a matte car last year too?
I can't remember if theirs was matte, but it was very similar.
It was similar.
Yeah.
And to some people, this is peak.
I disagree, but that's okay.
We don't all have to agree.
That's for sure.
I'm seeing if there's any other angles of the car.
I guess this is just the launch video.
Let's kick it over to the Haas.
Okay.
Let's talk about the Haas.
First thing is they're just straight to the point.
I'm like, oh, when did the Haas launch happen?
They're like, it happened on Instagram.
They post it.
That's it.
There's a heck of a lot less of a performance.
Yeah, it was.
And I think they're known to do that.
They're known to just be like, here's the car.
Here it is.
It looks pretty as hell.
It's simple.
It's sleek.
I like the red and black.
I really liked it.
And there's something about that side profile,
like this picture, the shot, like it just looks like a rocket.
Like it looks so sleek.
And that new GR logo there on the side looks awesome.
What is that?
That's Toyota.
What is it?
Gazoo racing?
Yeah, man.
Gazoo racing.
Yeah.
It's everyone's prediction of this Toyota is going to enter the grid.
And it's going to go through the Haas team,
but for now that's their soft launch, if you will.
So you're sorry that you said that they're going to enter the grid.
I'm not saying that's going to happen,
but that's the rumor that people are saying that this is the soft launch
that eventually Toyota will come in and take this team.
Just like Audi took, took something.
All right.
You heard it first from Dr. Garabram.
We're making quotes first.
We're saying facts as opposed to random predictions.
Everyone on the internet is going to get all mad at us.
Yeah, it's okay.
They already got a little mad at a few things, but that's okay.
That's what the internet's about.
Okay.
But yeah, I heard the same thing that they're kind of working their way
into potentially maybe one day owning a team, if not the Haas team.
And obviously Haas is a promising approach to it all,
but that car looks cool to me.
It looks, like I said, I like the white look, but like the white,
the black, the red, it just flows, I think a little bit better
than the V-Car with the yellows added in and a little bit more going on.
It looks classy.
Yeah.
And it just works so well.
The fact that Toyota Gazoo Racing is just, if it blends right in,
it just, it matches.
It's like built for this car.
100%.
Takes us back to almost that Marlboro car.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Was that the McLaren?
For sure that was the McLaren, but it looks good.
Yeah.
It looks cool.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I really like it.
Let's go on to the real McLaren, which is the Audi.
Oh man.
Let's take a look.
Okay.
Let's take a look at the car though.
Let's talk about the kit for these guys, man.
Like, does it get any better than that?
Adidas coming in and dropping a kit like that.
Can be honest with you.
Like it gave me like soccer jersey vibes.
100%.
It looks good.
Adidas is here, man.
Yeah.
Adidas is here.
Yeah.
This is a soccer gear company.
Yeah, it is.
That's what they're known for.
And there's something classy about just like a sleek, like,
we're sponsored by Audi.
Yeah.
We're not sponsored by 72 different companies.
That is true.
That I think.
It's like compared to.
It's clean.
Hope you and I love Red Bull.
Look at their freaking shirts.
There's like a hundred things on it.
Yeah.
But isn't racing supposed to be like, have that look with
the sponsors, the brands, you know what I mean?
Like that's, I feel like that's like iconic racing though.
It is.
But I think it's a bold, bold statement.
Your first year on the grid and going, we're Audi.
What else do you need?
Yeah.
Like, here we are.
I mean, listen, like if anyone can make a statement like that,
it's Audi.
Like they are big enough to do it.
You know what I mean?
Like they got money.
They got a lot of money.
It's in the German.
It's crisp.
It's exactly what you expect from Germans.
And you know what?
Like they're, they're well, well known in the motor sport.
You know, so in, in, in various different forms of motor sport,
they're, they're very, very successful.
So they're just here to conquer another playing field.
But the Audi are 26.
She pretty.
She is.
Yeah.
Everything from like the, the nice silver gloss along the
side to the transition from orange to black to the almost
orange shoe within the front.
The pods.
It's clean.
It is a clean looking car.
I heard someone say it kind of looks like when the printer runs
out of ink, which I thought was hilarious.
I see.
But to me, it's just crisp.
I really like it.
Like if it's anywhere near as fast as it is clean,
it's going to be a good, a good year for the boys in that car.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um,
it's going to be a good, a good year for the boys in that
car.
Yeah.
Um,
especially with Oakenberg getting the $50,000 bonus a point.
You know, this could be the next Kimmy Reichen and this could
be the, the, the downfall of Audi.
Yeah.
The almost bankrupt Lotus.
I think Audi's probably got some deeper pockets to be able
to fund that, but.
I think they'll be okay.
I think the math on it was if he wins a race here in $750,000
on one race as a bonus.
That's crazy.
On one race.
Not, not winning.
Not, not taking a championship.
Just on winning one race and one race.
So you can imagine if this car comes out and, you know,
pulls a Mac for stopping and ends up 19 out of 23 races.
Yeah.
That's, that's a big bill.
That is a massive bill.
Not enough to put Audi out like Lotus,
but it's going to be a very big bill for sure.
But going back to what you were saying, like,
I guess the car is very similar to, I guess the, the kit,
like not a lot of sponsors.
Like it's, it seems very clean.
Like even, even when we're looking at just the body work of
the car, like there's not a lot of other cars that have this
much real estate on it.
This is the opposite of Red Bull, man.
This is the statement of, you know, we're going to
sleep.
Maybe we're going fast or oh shit, we're going to be
slow.
We better strip as much off this as we can to try to get
that extra time.
That's crazy.
The paint and the weight can make a difference.
That is like, that is like crazy to me.
Think that like it goes to that extremity that that's
how detailed this board is, which is why again,
we're here talking about it because it's just so
fascinating.
100%.
100%.
Oh man.
No, it's a good looking car.
I, I'm excited to see it go.
You know, and I blame those metaglasses for making it
sound like a tie fighter and not AI.
So hopefully, hopefully, you know, it doesn't sound like it
does through those metaglasses because I felt like
something was off.
It's going to turn and burn.
If Audi's got anything to say about it, it's going to
turn and burn.
Yeah, for sure.
And then I guess from Audi, we had some of the engine
launches, right?
Yeah, we had Red Bull drop their power unit.
We talked about that a little bit.
Again, it's still a big unknown how it's going to go,
but you were watching the Honda power unit a little bit
more closely than I was because it's, you know,
intimately tied to your team that drops here in a few
days.
But what do you think the Honda power unit?
How are you feeling ahead of the new season?
Yeah, it looked really good.
It seemed like a very confident presentation of their engine.
Now there's a lot of speculation going around.
There has been some rumors going where the engine isn't
where it needs to be or where they want it to be, right?
So backtracking on Honda, Honda was working with
Red Bull, but up until 2021, right?
So the last dent of pretty much Honda's engines
were Red Bull was with limited changes that could
be allowed to those engines as per the rules.
So basically they were given a set amount of engines,
but they can only work so much on them in terms of changes.
So they weren't really producing or working on the engines
until now, now that they're working with Aston Martin racing.
So...
But it was one of the most dominant engines in the last
10 years.
It was.
It really was.
But the history...
Yes, yeah, for sure.
The resume is long.
What's that?
The resume is long.
The resume is very long and definitely the potential is there.
It's just unfortunate that they stopped working on it
and they pulled out in 21, right?
So it put them a little bit behind.
So when coming back into it with brand new regulations,
it's a whole new ballgame, right?
For everyone, right?
That's the whole purpose of this.
The engine itself, from my understanding,
due to them removing the MGUH unit,
which is basically using the overall heat to reproduce power
for the battery,
regenerate energy for the battery,
they use that to also kind of,
I guess, start up the fan for the turbocharger
for the boost of the car.
And basically what that led to was taking that out,
I guess it's creating a somewhat of a gap in power
in terms of efficiently getting that started up
at the right time to time it up with the engine.
So from my limited technical understanding,
the battery isn't a good state and a good spot,
but the combustion side is lagging
and is not where they want it to be, right?
So again, obviously in the presentation, it's all pretty,
it's all, hey, we're good, a lot of confidence,
a lot of proud representation of two teams
that have obviously a lot of money,
a lot of pride working together,
Aston Martin and Honda,
which again, I'm still very excited about.
They have some time to pull it together,
but rumors say that they will be pushing it
very close, very, very close.
So I think most teams in this new era are going to be ready.
You look at rebel powertrains and they're talking about
starting literally from scratch and the first steps
of this new regulation was figuring out
where the hell they wanted to build the building.
Yeah.
Building it from the ground up all the way
to trying to have an engine on race day.
That's no small feat.
So I think a lot of teams are going to push it to the wire.
I think a lot of teams are going to complain
about the progress they're making until we see them on track.
And that'll make the shakedown and the borrowing test
just that much more special when we get to see
how everything starts to shake out at the start of the season.
And you know what?
I actually do want to show the power grain a little bit too,
because I just think it looks beautiful.
And you don't need Oracle glasses to look at it.
Very straight to the point, right?
You don't need any fancy 3D, but like, it looks pretty.
That's the whole presentation that was going down.
But isn't she pretty?
Look at that.
I don't know anything about engines, but it's shiny.
It's shiny.
It looks new.
It's got a big-ass battery on the front of it.
Yeah, it has a big-ass battery.
I love these Fernando memes.
There's reels, the GIFs.
But I don't even know what that is.
It looks pretty.
Yeah, I wish I'd taken it.
Yeah, I wish I'd taken an aerospace engineering course
so I could understand what I was looking at,
but that's for future video.
We'll make sure that we circle back
once we have a little bit better technical understanding.
Yeah, we'll get back to you, Matt.
She looks good.
We're talking about making predictions for the season
that we're talking about, the excitement coming up.
We're going to start that off with talking a little bit
about this wager that we've set up,
what the stakes are, how we're planning on tracking
our predictions over the season,
and then locking those in, at least the pre-test prediction
so that people know what to hold this accountable to
and can track along with who's going to win this.
Yeah, I think it's important to tell people
that we're going to be doing, obviously, a lot of predictions.
But this pre-testing prediction is going to be one of them.
And then after we see the testing,
we'll do another prediction based off the car's performance
that will be kind of solidified list
of what we think is going to happen throughout the season.
This is kind of like the cherry on top.
At the end of the season, we'll use this one to see
if we scored some points or not,
but it won't be the one that makes us or breaks us.
That'll happen throughout the season for sure.
So what's the wager?
What are we putting on the line?
To prove who's the king of the season.
Let me screen share it so people know
that this is serious, serious business.
How much this podcast means to us
because we are willing to go to the extremities for this.
Please let me know if you can see it.
Can you see it?
No.
You can.
I'm just building up the suspense.
Just keep talking about it.
Build up the suspense.
This is how much we love.
This challenge was built off of the night.
We were planning this podcast and a side tangent.
We ended up on, which was of course watching hot ones
and realizing that both of us are inept at handling
crazy amounts of spice.
Obviously myself being far less.
Adapt than jog Paul, given the whiteness of my heritage
and the lack of spice in our, in our lineage.
We've committed to doing a pretty thorough
challenge with the last app.
We've watched a lot of celebrities struggle with the last app.
Borderline cry on live television after eating it.
And apparently struggling as bad as that guy.
And we're going to see if we've got the metal
at the end of the season to look
a little bit better than that guy.
Oh my God.
At the end of this, at the end of this season,
we're going to tally up the points from the predictions that
we've made at the start after testing.
And then on a weekly basis.
And the winner gets to watch the loser suffer as they eat
a hot wing, smothered in the sauce,
following the rule, the last app,
adding a little bit extra on top.
And we didn't decide to relent in the person to have milk
or sweet tea or is this a sit and suffer
and deal with it kind of moment.
I feel like we should set like a small timer to it.
Like be like, hey, you got to sit for like 30 seconds
or like a minute.
Sit for a minute before you reach the milk.
Yeah, before you reach the milk.
Okay, you heard it here first.
Whoever loses the sitting for a minute with the last app.
Right in that, right in that high before you're able
to turn to the palliative care of milk and sweet tea.
It is so easy to make these rules up now,
but I promise you when the season goes on
and one of us know it's going to happen,
we're going to regret these rules for sure.
100% you read the fucking label and says spice level
11 out of 10.
And the first picture is some dude curled over into a ball.
That's not going to be fun.
That picture is a savage.
Whoever left this picture here is a savage.
But what you'll notice is that's a five star review.
Oh, it is a five star review.
Yes, it is.
We're getting ourselves into something stupid,
but good luck to the loser of this bet.
Yeah, let's walk in these predictions from the pre test
before we have any tangible idea of what the cars are going
to do.
We have no tangible idea of whether, you know,
the Mercedes engine is going to be a rocket ship
or a cannonball, but let's let's throw up these predictions
from what we're talking about before and show the people
who's got what list.
Let's see it.
So we have.
Garrett, do you want to take this start this up?
All right.
So let's start from the bottom and we'll go back
and forth.
We'll have both of our P 22 all the way up starting off
in P 22 because there are 22 drivers on the grid this year.
Sorry, Esteban.
I'm throwing a spin off again at the bottom of the boat.
Fair enough.
And then I have our rookie, Arvid spin.
I mean, Lin Blad, not spin blad.
Sorry.
That was a mistake.
He might have spun out the car already.
I don't know.
But yeah, that's who I got.
I've got a little bit more mercy for Arvid,
but not a whole lot.
I'm putting him in P 21.
Arvid Lin Blad P 21.
And then P 21.
I have Valtteri Bottas.
And speaking nothing little of his experience,
but you know, we just got to roll with the Cadillac blow.
You have a little faith in the American brand.
P 20.
I got Franco Colopinto.
Perfect.
And then P 20.
I have Esteban Ocon.
P 19.
Gabby Bordoletto.
Yeah, I'm really Gabby P 19.
And that Audi might be quick, but I'm throwing him P 19.
Sorry, buddy.
And then P 19 for me is got Franco Colopinto.
P 18.
We're going to Ollie Bearman.
He's, you know, got the medals,
but I don't think they've got the car under them yet this
year.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Like he really drove all this year.
I think he's going to, he's only going to get better, no?
We'll get better.
You've got him ranked a little bit higher,
but I'm throwing him into the bottom of the,
bottom of the order for now.
Sure enough.
And then P 18.
Again, my, my little faith to Cadillac,
American team using an Italian engine.
Check out P 17.
Niko.
I think he's going to win a few points,
but I don't think he's, you know,
bankrupting out of this year.
I think he's going to have a few under his belt,
but he's not taking the lead by any means.
Oh, come on.
If there's anything that motivates people, it's money.
Like, I think he's, he's going to be driving hard.
He'll give it a college try.
I think it'll be a college try.
Not a PhD try at this point.
Fair enough.
And then 17.
I got Gabby Bortoletto.
P 16.
The Canadian.
May he rest in our thoughts.
Lance Stroll.
No, no, he's going to do better.
As a Canadian podcast,
we got to give some love to our boy Lance.
Come on now.
I know you've got him up in P nine, but sorry, buddy.
He's sitting in P 16 for me.
Yo, good.
I have to put him top 10.
There's no way my heart,
my Canadian heart wasn't letting me go any lower.
It's going to be a missed point for you,
but that's okay.
We'll come back.
Who you got in P 16?
Oh man.
And then P 16.
I got Liam Lawson.
P 15.
Valtteri Bottas.
I'm believing in Cadillac a little bit more than you are.
I think they're just a tad bit.
That's okay.
And then P 15.
I have Oliver Bearman.
P 14.
Liam Lawson is going to take that little talk a truck of a car
and he's going to put himself just outside the place.
You think you think the V carb and then they're going to do
good with the Ford engine?
You think they're going to pull that off?
They can do it.
Yeah.
They can do it.
Bottom of the middle pack.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
P 14.
I got Nico Ulkenberg.
P 13.
Checo Perez.
And then I got P 13.
Pierre Gasly,
who I think is going to do well in the Alpine this coming
year.
You know,
I thought pretty similarly P 12.
Pierre Gasly for me and you've got him lined up with
one of the best of all time.
So that's a statement.
Yeah.
I've got him lined up with Lewis Hamilton at P 12.
And you know,
I brought this up to Garrett while we were doing this.
I'm like,
we got to like Pete.
I got to P 12, P 13.
I'm like, oh my God,
I haven't even thought of Lewis Hamilton yet.
Something or you're not putting high hopes in that Ferrari
early.
No.
P 11.
Alex Alba and the Williams.
And then we got P 11.
Isaac Hajar.
You know, I thought a little bit higher of Lewis.
I put him in P 10,
which is, it's, I mean,
he's a seven time world champion.
He deserves to be a lot higher than P 10.
I feel like I feel like P 10 is,
it says something again.
Must be the water.
Must be the water.
Must be the water.
P 10.
I have Alex Alba.
He can out Lewis Hamilton.
My list.
I got Isaac Hajar at P nine.
I think that Red Bull.
Again,
he doesn't have to be in a rocket ship,
but he hasn't had the experience that he's putting in a P nine.
Yeah.
I mean,
if there's a time for Isaac to do well, it's now,
like if there's any second driver to Max to do well, it's now.
So the opportunity is definitely there.
For me, P nine, you already said it.
I'm wearing the jacket.
I'm wearing the,
I represent the colors.
We got Lance Stroll, our Canadian boy.
Let's go.
I got P eight.
I got Charles Banana Leclerre at P eight.
I flipped that word.
I got Charles coming in P seven.
I got him Eek and out Carlos.
It's going to be,
you know,
X teammates close on the grid,
but I think Charles is Eek and it out slightly.
Well, better ways for after this point.
Fair enough.
And I have,
I guess the other way around Carlos,
smooth operator signs.
And I just think,
I have to stick to my gut where I said,
Williams was going to beat out Ferrari.
And this is that decision right there.
I've got your boy Fernando Alonso.
And he's going to come in P six.
I think that Aston's going to put a car that's going to work,
but I don't think they're,
you can have the big dogs.
Fair enough.
That's a,
that's a good guest.
I live on Fox.
Do what he can.
Wrong.
Wrong place, but good guess.
For P six,
I got the young and Kimmy Antonelli.
I got Kimmy and five.
And then for five,
I've got Lando Norris.
And we're just going this track the rest of the way up.
Yeah.
Got Lando and five.
I've got Lando and four.
There you go.
And I've got Oscar pastry at P four.
I got Oscar,
I got Oscar pastry at P four.
I got Oscar pastry in three.
P three for me is Max Verstappen.
Ooh.
And we both agreed P two George Russell.
We think he's pulling out the bootstraps this year.
And you know, we just continue not to agree on this P one.
I've got the goat.
Max Verstappen and P one.
I think he's taking it this year.
Whether I see it in testing or not.
I think that's going to be how it's going to go this year.
Yeah.
And honestly, he is the goat.
But I got to give it.
If there's one time I got to show my callers.
It's pre testing, you know,
predictions and I got to give it to Fernando.
I think, you know, he,
he's the best at bringing the worst car to life, you know,
and he's,
he's shown it over and over again where he's given a car
that is, you know, below average or even garbage.
And he does something with it.
And if Honda, Adrian,
Aston Martin put something even slightly decent together,
he's got the race craft.
He's got the experience.
He's got the pace to pull through.
So I'm going to give it to my boy Fernando Alonzo.
I got to give it to him.
You're going with Fernando,
even though that's going to lock you into eating that hot
wing.
I will.
I will happily not.
Sorry.
I will not happily eat the hot wing,
but I will do it because I believe in Aston Martin.
Well, that, that runs deep.
That's exciting.
Can't wait to see how this plays out and how good are
completely uneducated pre test predictions go.
We're going to run these back once we see the team shake
out.
And once we see the teams test in Bahrain,
but between now and when you hear us next,
there's going to be a lot of cool stuff going down.
We've got Mercedes, Ferrari and Alpine,
all showing off their cars.
And we're going to be halfway through the shakedown week.
We're going to see a bunch of these cars, you know,
whether or not it's publicized,
we're going to see these cars get out,
put a few laps under their belts,
test the reliability.
And we're going to see what,
what this looks like after the shakedown from there.
We'll be able to see, you know,
a couple more cars.
We'll get to hear the engines on track and hopefully see a
little bit more of the reliability, but to be exciting,
buddy, we're getting that much closer.
Yeah.
And I'm actually interested to see what the shakedown is even
because like, again, this is the first full F1 season
that I'll be watching.
So that all of this is completely new to me.
And I guess a little bit about the shakedown is they're
just testing out, I guess,
the mechanical components of the car.
You can't drive over 200 kilometers per hour.
You got to keep it within certain,
I guess parameters as well as you can only participate three
out of five shakedown days.
Is that right, Garrett?
Yeah.
I mean, it's really just the team's chance as far as I
understand it to make sure the shit don't break there to make
sure that, you know,
what they've built for the new regulation is safe.
Yeah.
And to give the FIA a chance to run a little bit of data and
more than, more than not just a chance to get the cars up
on track and make sure that, you know,
what they've put in the simulator seems to be accurate,
but we're not going to see the cars up at top speed.
We're not going to have anything representative as far as data.
And to your point, three out of five days,
they can only run three out of those five days.
So if they show up on day one,
get one lap in and blow their engine and can't get back out
there for the rest of the day.
That counts.
So reliability is going to be interesting early on.
It'd be cool to see who's built, you know,
the tractor that runs for forever and who's built the
glass cannon.
We'll see if any of these rumors kind of live up to the hype
that they've had this whole time.
Yeah.
Let's see if that, you know,
extra compression that they're getting actually shakes down
and last this reliability test.
Cause like you said, it could be a cannonball.
Could be a glass cannon.
We'll see.
You got anything else for today before we wrap this up?
No, I think, I think we've nailed all of the topics
and we, we got through this pretty, pretty good.
Nice.
Well, with that, a big thank you to everyone listening to
the cool down lap podcast, number two.
And we'll be back for episode number three next week
for your host signing off today.
Thanks for listening.
Yeah.
And be sure to check us out.
We are now on Spotify, Amazon music,
Apple music, YouTube.
We're all there.
So check out our link.
Joggy's been working hard in the background.
We've been going at it.
The reels are going to keep coming.
So stay tuned and we're signing out on that.
About this episode
Excitement brews as hosts Jogpaul and Garrett dive into the latest car launches and predictions for the upcoming racing season. They discuss the standout liveries from Red Bull and Haas, highlighting their unique presentations and design choices. The duo also shares their unfiltered predictions for driver placements, engaging in a friendly wager involving a spicy hot sauce challenge for the loser. With a mix of humor and insightful commentary, they explore team dynamics, engine performance, and the thrill of the upcoming races.
Original notes
The Cooldown Lap β Episode 2 | Red Bull, Audi & 2026 Predictions
F1 launch season is officially here β and the liveries are doing all the talking π
In Episode 2 of The Cooldown Lap, we break down the brand-new looks from:
π΄ Red Bull
π£ VCARB
βͺ Haas
π‘ Audi
Who nailed it?
Who played it safe?
And who already looks like a 2026 title contender?
Then we lock in our 2026 World Championship predictions β P1 to P20 β with no takebacks.
Every correct driver earns a point⦠and the loser will be hearing about it for years.
ποΈ Hosted by Jogpaul & Garrett
π Topics covered:
β’ Red Bullβs unchanged look β confidence or complacency?
β’ Why VCARB might have the best livery on the grid
β’ Is Haas finally serious?
β’ Audiβs first true F1 identity
β’ Alonso, Verstappen, Leclerc, Piastri & the 2026 title fight
π Drop a comment
Which team won the livery battle?
And whoβs your 2026 champion?
π² Follow us on Instagram for clips & debates:
@TheCooldownLap
#F1 #Formula1 #AudiF1 #RedBullRacing #HaasF1 #VCARB #F12026 #FernandoAlonso #MaxVerstappen #F1Podcast #TheCooldownLap #F1News #F1Liveries #Motorsport
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